LAMP lights the web – by Tony Steidler-Dennison
Why LAMP tools?
For the entire life of the World Wide Web, the backbone that’s kept it upright are the tools of Linux. Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, and Python — collectively known as LAMP — comprise more than two-thirds of the servers, databases, and scripting languages on the web today. It’s getting more difficult each day to be a web developer without knowledge and at least a rudimentary level of skill with these tools.
What’s the attraction to LAMP tools for developers around the world? In part, it’s the open source underpinnings of LAMP tools. They’re freely available, easily configured, and very robust. They’re in a constant state of development and improvement, adding features suggested by the user community at large. They can be easily deployed, fully configured, and maintained with a minimal amount of effort. In short, the LAMP tool kit allows developers to do what they do best: develop, without spending a disproportionate amount of time in the administrative details.
All these elements are addressed in the package of LAMP tools provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With commerce and the internal communication needs of the enterprise in mind, Enterprise Linux helps to assure that configuring and administering a LAMP server will be as painless a process as is possible.
The tools of LAMP development
The well-defined tools of LAMP web development exist in nearly every Linux distribution. They include:
- Linux
- Apache web server
- MySQL database application
- PHP scripting language
- Perl programming language
- Python programming language
Note that it’s not necessary to have all elements of LAMP installed. The LAMP acronym points more to a selection of one the “P” elements (PHP, Perl, and Python) rather than to a need for the inclusion of all of them. Of course, you’ll likely find both Perl and Python useful tools for other administrative tasks, so they’ll probably be installed on your system whether or not your intent is to use them as an element of LAMP web development.
Enterprise Linux provides the most recent version of each of these packages available at the time of the Enterprise Linux version release. Apache, PHP, Perl, and Python are provided as defaults in the installation of Enterprise Linux, while MySQL requires selection at the time of installation.
Linux
Clearly, the most important element of the LAMP combination is the Linux distribution installed on the server. With dozens of distributions available, the choice can be a bit perplexing. Of the available distributions, however, Enterprise Linux has grabbed the strongest niche in enterprise-grade LAMP web servers for several reasons.
- Enterprise Linux utilizes the latest stable kernel version.
- The underlying ext3 file system is a well-proven technology for both rapid recovery and protecting the integrity of the data on the server.
- The Anaconda-based installation is both easy and accurate, detecting and configuring nearly all the available hardware options for the server.
- The Anaconda hardware detection routines are particularly well-suited to such devices as SCSI drives and RAID arrays, devices that enhance the overall performance and stability of enterprise-grade servers.
- Enterprise Linux also provides clean and easy-to-use tools for failover clustering and load balancing services — services that become even more essential in the performance sensitive enterprise environment.